What Price Love?

by Stephanie Laurens

  She threshed, but they were aided by the body of their insensate comrade. They trapped her arms, trapped her legs, leaning on her to immobilize her before they pushed their unconscious friend away and fell on her.

  She gasped, and struggled for all she was worth—shut her ears to their swearing, their lewd promises of what they intended to do—but she was losing the battle, losing her air as they leaned heavily on her, grabbing her legs through her rucked gown, forcing them apart—

  Something crashed.

  They didn’t hear. They pressed her more cruelly into the bed, their leering faces close—

  Then they were gone. Flying through the air.

  Pris turned her head in time to see one hit the wall. A similar thump from the opposite side of the room suggested the other had met a like fate.

  She blinked, dragged much-needed air into her lungs, struggled up to her elbows, and managed to focus. On Rus, pummeling one of her attackers. She looked the other way, and found Dillon efficiently thrashing the other one.

  Wriggling up, hauling her skirts out of the way, she got to her knees, and peered over the edge of the bed. The leader, still sobbing and wheezing, was writhing on the floor. She considered getting down and kicking him again. First, she clambered over to the other side and looked down. The one who’d fainted lay lifeless, still unconscious.

  A condition now attained by the other two. Rus straightened as the man he’d been ministering to slid down the wall.

  Pris glanced at Dillon; he’d already turned from his crumpled victim, his attention locked on her. His gaze raced over her. “Are you all right?”

  She looked at him, saw the raw emotion in his face, in his eyes, and found she couldn’t speak. She nodded.

  Then he was there, relief sweeping through him as he swept her into his arms and crushed her to him.

  She hugged him back, equally wildly, equally unrestrained. “You got here in time.”

  Not at any time had she doubted he would.

  “I thought we wouldn’t…” He mumbled the words against her hair.

  She heard the fear, nay, terror, in them. “But you did.” She hugged him again, then held out a hand to Rus, grabbed his fingers when they slid into hers. “You both got here in time.”

  Rus returned her squeeze, then released her hand and stepped back to look down at the unconscious man by the bed.

  A heavy sigh filled the room.

  It came from the door.

  Rus looked, and froze. Without shifting from his position facing the bed, shielding Pris kneeling on it, Dillon turned his head.

  Pris, her arms still wrapped around him, peeked around his arm, ignoring his surreptitious attempts to ease her away.

  “It is so difficult to find intelligent help these days.” Wallace stood in the doorway, his gaze burning with hatred, a pistol in one hand. “It appears, Lady Priscilla, that my revenge is to be commendably direct after all.”

  Smoothly, he raised the pistol—and leveled it at Dillon.

  Dillon let Pris go. He turned.

  Rus launched himself across the room.

  “No!” Pris flung herself at Dillon.

  The pistol discharged.

  Bearing Dillon down, Pris heard a familiar whirr whizz past her ear as the pistol’s report exploded through the room, loud as a cannon in the enclosed space. Dillon fell over the writhing man on the ground and hit the floor; in a tangle of arms, legs, bodies, and skirts, she landed on top of him.

  Dillon caught her, lifted her—and saw Rus, hands locked on a second pistol, wrestling with Abercrombie-Wallace in the doorway. He swore, wedged Pris behind him, and fought to untangle his feet from the legs of the groaning man pinned beneath him.

  He scrambled upright; over Rus’s shoulder, Abercrombie-Wallace saw him.

  Wallace let go of the pistol, shoving it with all his might at Rus, rocking Rus back on his heels. Wallace stepped back into the corridor; recovering his balance, Rus lunged at him.

  Reaching to the side, Wallace hauled a large, shrieking female across and threw her at Rus.

  The female and Rus went down, blocking the doorway.

  Rus swore volubly. Dillon reached him as he pushed the woman from him and struggled to his feet.

  Rus went to leap over the woman and race after Wallace.

  Dillon caught his arm. “No.”

  The woman stopped shrieking. The clatter of Wallace’s footsteps descending the stairs faded, then they heard a door slam.

  Dillon exhaled, and released Rus’s arm. “He’s made his choice. Let him flee into the arms of his just reward.”

  Rus met his eyes, lowered his voice. “Those gentlemen in the black carriage?”

  Dillon nodded. “Not that they’re gentlemen, not by any stretch of the word.”

  Pris heard; she didn’t understand, but she’d question them later. Now…now she felt shaky, so relieved to see them both hale and whole, to know she needn’t fear the four “gentlemen” littering the floor.

  Rising unsteadily to her knees, she put up a hand to push back the curls that had jarred loose to tumble about her face. She tucked them back; her hand brushed her ear—pain stabbed. Wincing, she felt dampness on her fingers. She looked at her hand.

  At the blood streaking it.

  Realized what that oddly familiar whirr had been.

  She glanced up; both Dillon and Rus were helping the woman, wheezing, complaining, and protesting her innocence, to her feet. Quickly, Pris scrambled to hers, simultaneously fluffing her curls over her nicked ear. She surreptitiously wiped her hand on the crimson coverlet; at least the blood wouldn’t show.

  Suggesting she retreat to her parlor for a restorative, Dillon pushed the large woman out and closed the door.

  Rus had already turned to survey their assorted victims. He nudged the one he’d rendered senseless with the toe of his shoe. “What should we do with these?”

  A short discussion ensued. Eventually, instead of beating the four to a pulp, Rus’s favored option, one with which Pris felt a certain amount of sympathy, they begged supplies from the madam, tied hands and hobbled legs, secured gags in place, and then, with all four roused if groggy, bullied them down the stairs and out into the street. There, they found the hackney Dillon and Rus had commandeered waiting, along with the one that had brought Pris to the brothel.

  Joe tapped his cap. “Didn’t seem right, once I thought on it. I came to see if there was anything I could do.”

  Pris smiled at him. “Thank you. If you could take these four scoundrels—they’ll give you no trouble—and follow us?”

  The black carriage had vanished. In procession, the two hackneys rattled back to Mayfair.

  After their first stop, with the thrill of exacting a most suitable revenge glowing in her veins, Pris leaned against Dillon as the hackney swayed on its way to their next port of call.

  She looked up at his face, caught his eyes, smiled. “You’re rather good at designing devilish plans.”

  He looked into her eyes, then raised a hand and, gently, reverently, traced the side of her face. “When the spirit moves me.”

  His voice was low, a caress, a prayer. He glanced across the carriage to where Rus was studiously watching the passing façades, then bent his head, and kissed her.

  Not a kiss of passion, but of thankfulness, of gratitude, of relief. She responded with the same emotions, her fingers clenching in his lapel, holding him to her.

  The carriage slowed. Dillon lifted his head and looked out. “Next one.”

  Their vengeance was thorough, and shockingly apt. Dillon had recognized all four “gentlemen.” They’d known who Pris was, had recognized her; they’d knowingly and with intent set out to ruin Lady Priscilla Dalloway, an earl’s daughter. As the evening lengthened, Dillon, Pris, and Rus did the rounds of the major balls and parties, delivering each of the four, coatless, trussed, and sniveling, whence they’d come.

  They delivered them to their mothers.

  Four senior ladies of the t
on had their evenings interrupted, disrupted, by having their errant sons thrust on their knees before them—in public. They had to sit and listen as their son’s crimes were explained to them—in public, before their friends and acquaintances—by the much lionized and lauded, acknowledged ruler of the sport of kings, by his affianced wife, the fabulously beautiful earl’s daughter who, kidnapped from her engagement ball and abandoned in a brothel, their vicious and dissolute sons had attempted to ruin rather than help, and by her brother, Viscount Rushworth, one of the most eligible young peers about town.

  In one respect, their revenge was a reckless gamble, but all who witnessed the four spectacles were aghast. All righteously ranged themselves behind Pris in defense of gently bred ladies far and wide.

  Each “gentleman,” left to his mother’s and the ton’s mercy, found none.

  It was late when they returned to Berkeley Square.

  Buoyed by euphoria over having faced a terror and comprehensively triumphed, they walked into Horatia’s front hall—straight into bedlam.

  They’d left so precipitously no one had known where any of them had gone. Their reappearance, all a trifle less than their usual immaculate selves, brought on a spate of scoldings, along with wide-eyed demands to be told what had gone on.

  Their tale, when everyone consented to sit and let them tell it, was the wonder of the night. In the hackney, they’d agreed to hold nothing back; the color and pace gave credence to their adventure, and in this case, there was no one they needed to protect.

  The Honorable Hayden Abercrombie-Wallace no longer had any place in the ton. As he described their exit from the brothel onto a street with only two hackneys waiting, Dillon wasn’t sure Wallace would still be among the living.

  Everyone was predictably horrified, fired with indignation and righteous zeal, yet also glad to have been there to hear the tale, to have, however vicariously, shared in the downfall of the gentleman who had come worryingly close to holding the racing world to ransom.

  Dillon, Rus, and Pris were hailed as heroes again; those who didn’t know the full story of the substitution switch begged enlightenment from those who did. Barnaby, delighted even though he was miffed to have missed the action, left to take the word to Bow Street.

  Meanwhile, Horatia’s ball, which had been on the point of breaking up in confusion, took on new life. The musicians played softly in their alcove while the guests sat, talked, and marveled for what was left of the night.

  Dillon glanced at Pris. She had a bright smile fixed on her face; beneath it, she was wilting. He was perfectly certain she wasn’t truly listening to the grande dame bending her ear.

  The instant the lady moved on, he touched Pris’s arm, then closed his hand around hers as she turned his way. “Let’s go home.”

  To Flick’s house, where he could deal with the roiling, seething, unsettling emotions surging through him. He wasn’t entirely sure what they were, or how to ease them. Terror, fear, and relief had burgeoned, but then washed through him and subsided, leaving whatever this was behind. Exposed. Undeniable.

  He’d hidden his emotions from everyone, even her, until now. Looking into her eyes as she searched his face, he let her see, and simply said, “I’ve had enough.”

  She hesitated for only a heartbeat, then nodded. “I’ll tell Rus and Eugenia.”

  Dillon waited by the door. When she returned to his side, they found Horatia, who in the circumstances allowed them to slip quietly away. Taking Pris’s hand, Dillon led her out of the ballroom, away from the glad furor of their victory, out into the cool of the night.

  Jake, their driver, had elected to wait. He took them up and drove them the short distance to Half Moon Street. Dillon insisted on tipping him generously, even though Jake protested that the excitement had been gratuity enough; they parted with good wishes all around.

  Dillon used his key to the front door. The house lay silent, sunk in peace; the servants had retired, and all the other above-stairs occupants were still at Horatia’s. Quiet content wrapped about them as in the dark they climbed the stairs; reassurance that all was well had laid calming hands on him by the time they reached Pris’s chamber and went in.

  Pris crossed to the dressing table and set down her reticule; shrugging off her cloak, she let it fall over the stool. Dillon lit the candelabra on the dresser, shrugged out of his coat and waistcoat, then crossed to the hearth, where a fire was burning low. Crouching, he stirred it to life.

  With a sigh, she turned, sank onto the stool, and watched him. Watched the flames rise, leap, and light his face.

  She’d eagerly lent her aid with his plan to disgrace her four attackers; she’d stood beside him while they’d told Horatia’s guests their tale. Now, however, she felt not just outwardly bedraggled, with her crumpled gown, her disarranged curls, and the bruises on her wrists, but rough and rather ragged inside, as if her very emotions had been abraded.

  As for Dillon…she hadn’t recognized or understood that look in his eyes, but she’d sensed, from the moment they’d taken stock in the brothel chamber, that he’d slammed a door on his reactions and had ruthlessly contained them through the following hours…none knew better than she that such control had its limits.

  He reached for a log and laid it on the flames. She watched, savoring the play of muscles beneath the fine linen of his shirt, content that he was there, soothed by his presence. He was the only person she could have imagined being alone with in that moment. He’d spent most of the recent nights with her, in this room; she would have missed him had he not been there.

  Soon he had a lovely fire blazing in the hearth, throwing light and welcome heat into the room. He rose, and stood staring down at the flames. She rose, too, and went to stand beside him.

  His hand found hers; she twined her fingers with his.

  After a moment, he shifted, and drew her into his arms.

  She went readily, eagerly, lifting her face as he bent his head. His lips covered hers; she parted them, and welcomed him in.

  Not the smooth, sophisticated, charming him but that other him, the passionate man that lurked behind the social mask. She tasted him, the untamed, not entirely safe, thrilling, exciting, wickedly sinful him.

  She drew him to her. With her lips, with her body, she tempted and taunted, lured him with a wild and wicked promise of her own, offered her own passion, her heart and soul, in return for his.

  The kiss turned greedy; her head started to spin.

  One arm tightened, possessive and steely, about her waist. His other hand rose, pushing aside her loosened curls to frame her face—

  Pain stabbed, sharp, intense; she jerked, winced, before she remembered…

  “What is it?” He’d lifted his head on the instant. He looked at his fingers, then pushed back her curls. “My God, you’re bleeding!”

  Pris fleetingly closed her eyes. Damn! “It’s just a little nick.” Opening her eyes, she tried to push back, but the arm about her waist gave not an inch.

  “A nick? When…”

  Dillon realized. He saw the faint powder burns around the ragged tear in the rim of her shell-like ear, the perfect alabaster curve desecrated beyond repair. She wouldn’t die, the wound would heal, but that perfect curve would never be perfect again.

  Remembered terror, he discovered, could be worse than the original fear. Could be deeper, broader, courtesy of time and the ability to think, to imagine, to fully comprehend what might have been.

  An icy rage filled him, fueled by that stark terror. He blinked, and all he saw was the black well of despair that had so nearly claimed her—and him.

  “You got this when you tried to save me.” His voice was even—too even—his tone deathly cold.

  Her head rose; his hand fell from her face as she angled her chin at him. “I didn’t just try—I saved you. You were just standing there, letting him shoot at you!”

  Everything male in him rose up and roared, “Damn it! That’s not the point!”

  She didn�
��t so much as flinch. Instead, she leaned nearer and face-to-face clearly enunciated, “It is to me. You were about to get shot—what did you expect me to do? Sit safely shielded behind you and wring my hands?”

  “Yes!” He forced his hands from her; it was that or shake her. “That’s precisely what you should have done.”

  She pulled back and stared at him. “Don’t be daft.”

  “Daft?” He clutched his hair and swung away from her. “Damn it, Pris, you were nearly raped. Would have been raped if Rus and I hadn’t got there in time—and all because of me. Because of my wonderful plan to trap Mr. X, to protect us, to…to do what duty suggested.”

  Unyielding before the hearth, Pris frowned at him. “Yes, I know. But you did get there in time.” She watched him pace before her, read the agitation in every wild and violent movement. What was this?

  He shook his head. His face was set. “Yes, but…none of that was important. I thought it was, and at one level it is, but not at the level that matters most. You are important, and you—and what we have, you and I—all of that I put at risk.” He halted, met her eyes, his gaze dark, turbulent, a little wild. “Bad enough. That’s something I’ll have to live with—something I’ll never do again. Never risk again. But”—his hands fisted at his sides—“then you—you risked yourself! Trying to save me! Don’t you ever do such a foolish thing again!”

  She returned his furious glare, opened her mouth—

  “Don’t think I’m not grateful, but…” He dragged in a breath, spoke through clenched teeth. “You are going to promise me you’ll never, ever, put yourself at risk again, not for anything. You promised me you never would—”

  “Not unless you were with me! You were! That was the point—I had to save you.”

  “I don’t care! You are going to promise me you’ll never, ever, regardless of anything, risk yourself in any way what ever again!”

  She narrowed her eyes on his. She let a telling moment tick by. “And if I won’t?”